BTCC STARS IN CHARITY FOOTBALL MATCH
The stars of the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship
will swap their racing boots for football boots at the end
of the season to help raise cash for charity.
SEAT Sport UK’s Jason Plato, James Thompson and Darren
Turner (pictured right), Team RAC’s Colin Turkington
and Robert Collard, Thurlby Motors with Tech-Speed’s
Paul O’Neill, Team Halfords’ Gareth Howell and
Fast-Tec Motorsport’s Mark Proctor will be the driving
force behind the Dunlop BTCC Wanderers squad that faces a
line-up of celebrities and ex-professional football greats
on Sunday 29 October.
Non-league side Chesham United, from Chesham near Hemel Hempstead,
has kindly offered its stadium The Meadow for the event. Its
manager, ex-England and Watford star Luther Blissett, will
take on the managerial duties for the Wanderers!
One of his jobs will be to hone the talents of the BTCC’s
leading scorers Thompson and O’Neill, who both netted
one goal when British motor racing’s premier championship
took to the field in 2003 for a similar charity event.
Double BTCC champion Thompson said: “I think my goal
was more luck than judgement, but I’m hoping I’ll
be in the right place at the right time again – that’s
where Luther will come in! I’m really looking forward
to it. It’ll be a fun day out where the crowd will see
lots of goals – sadly most of them against us no doubt.”
The event will help the emergency appeal of the Iain Rennie
Hospice at Home charity which provides terminally ill patients
with a 24-hour on-call nursing home care service. The charity
needs to raise £200,000 by April 2007 in order to prevent
reducing its service.
BTCC fan Blissett said: “Iain Rennie Hospice at Home
is a vital charity in our area and hopefully we can help the
appeal by putting on a bit of entertainment on the football
pitch. I played for the BTCC last time it did an event like
this and thought it would be good to organise a similar event
to help this emergency appeal. Everyone at Chesham United
is delighted they can be a part of it.”
The Dunlop-backed BTCC team will take on Celebrities United
which includes the likes of Cyril Regis and some of the personalities
from television show The Match. The event could turn into
a mini-tournament, however, with two teams featuring television
stars still to be confirmed.
Admission will be £5 for adults and £1 for children
under 16 with all proceeds going to the appeal. As well as
the matches there will be on-pitch competitions for spectators.
Kick-off will be 1pm.
After the event, the BTCC players will sign and donate their
football shirts to an on-line auction – to be held on
the BTCC.net website – to further boost the appeal fund.
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